Fox Road Media Tech Tips: April

April is all about being Balanced!

Fox Road Media Tech Tips: April

April is all about being Balanced!

Looking for PYP Read-Alouds? Look no further!

Don't forget that some of the possible attitudes that go along with being a Thinker are COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, CURIOSITY, and RESPECT. There's also a display of Thinker/Women's History Month books on display. Stop by and take a look!

Balanced Books

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The true story of how a boy in Malawi figured out a way to bring water and electricity to his village.

The Librarian of Basra

The true story of a how a librarian in Iraq managed to save 30,000 books from destruction during the war in 2003.

Mama Miti

Wangari Mathaai believed that the health problems her people in Kenya were facing had to do with deforestation and comes up with a solution that eventually earned her the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The true story of how a boy in Malawi figured out a way to bring water and electricity to his village.

The Librarian of Basra

The true story of a how a librarian in Iraq managed to save 30,000 books from destruction during the war in 2003.

Mama Miti

Wangari Mathaai believed that the health problems her people in Kenya were facing had to do with deforestation and comes up with a solution that eventually earned her the Nobel Peace Prize.

Miracle Mud

The true story of how baseball player Lena Blackburn created a secret mud recipe that forever changed the way baseball players broke in their baseballs before games.

New Shoes

During the time of segregation, African Americans were not allowed to try on shoes at shoe stores. Ella Mae and her cousin create a clever solution in this book when they create their own shoe store.

The Woman Who Invented the Thread That Stops Bullets

Girls rule.

Miracle Mud

The true story of how baseball player Lena Blackburn created a secret mud recipe that forever changed the way baseball players broke in their baseballs before games.

New Shoes

During the time of segregation, African Americans were not allowed to try on shoes at shoe stores. Ella Mae and her cousin create a clever solution in this book when they create their own shoe store.

Alicia Alonso: Prima Ballerina

It's never easy to rise to the ranks of prima ballerina, especially not when dealing with partial blindness as a result of retinal detachment. Check out this biography written in free verse.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Who is she, you ask? Why, the woman who helped bring democracy to Burma, that's who.

Mighty Jackie: The Strike Out Queen

Jackie Mitchell earned the title of strike out queen during a baseball game in 1931 when, at the age of 17, she struck out Babe Ruth AND Lou Gehrig!

Alicia Alonso: Prima Ballerina

It's never easy to rise to the ranks of prima ballerina, especially not when dealing with partial blindness as a result of retinal detachment. Check out this biography written in free verse.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Who is she, you ask? Why, the woman who helped bring democracy to Burma, that's who.

Mighty Jackie: The Strike Out Queen

Jackie Mitchell earned the title of strike out queen during a baseball game in 1931 when, at the age of 17, she struck out Babe Ruth AND Lou Gehrig!

Tech Bytes: What's the Hub, Bub?

Tech Tips: Hubs, Switches and Routers.

As we proceed through the various devices and protocols which are keeping our wireless and cabled computer networks humming, I would be remiss if I didn't mention three of the most crucial, if not absolutely necessary, parts of any computer network and those would be Hubs, Switches and Routers.

In all three cases these are devices which connect computers either to each other or to the Internet itself. The biggest difference between these boxes boils down to the amount of intelligence each has and their ability to management network traffic.

1) The Hub: A hub is a passive device with at least two (2) ports which connects computers to one another and can then be connected to a Switch or Router. The Hub only provides connectivity. It is not "intelligent" in any sense and to it all network traffic looks the same. One thing to note with hubs is that computers connected to one can see each other's network traffic and even access each other's files. A Hub can be connected to either of its smarter cousins, Switch or Router, to gain access to the Internet.

2) The Switch: A Switch is a much smarter version of a Hub. A Switch can read network traffic and determine which message (packet) should go where. In essence a Switch is a digital traffic cop which directs messages to the next proper destination in the request chain. The Switch can also segment its ports into separate domains within the network, therefore computers connect by a hub which is in turn connected to a switch can be on their own private network with no other computers being able to "see" their traffic or information.

3) The Router: The Router is the highest level of device in the Hub, Switch, Router food chain. The Router can do everything that the Switch and Hub can do but it also is able to communicate directly with the Internet via Domain Name Servers (DNS). The Router builds tables and stores the locations of computers within its own network and those frequently visited computers outside its network. Routers have built-in safeguards (e.g. Firewalls) which protect the Router and the computers under its purview. The average Internet consumer has a Router at home which provides wireless connectivity and World Wide Web access via a telephone or cable line.

Most of our classrooms here at Fox Road have wall-mounted cabinets which hold Switches that have cables running out to computers in the room and then fiber-optic lines running back to the main Router stack behind the Media Center.

That Router stack is connected to the WCPSS Wide Area Network via a T-1 phone line which is in turn connected to the Internet through T-3 Phones lines at Wake County Central.